By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline girls basketball team returns to Gypsum for their home and league opener to face the Beloit Trojans at 6:00.
Both teams began their season with a win but dropped their contest on Tuesday as Beloit fell 52-35 to Clay Center and SES fell 53-47 to Smoky Valley.
“We couldn’t score and that was really our biggest issue,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We never felt like we were out of the game but it never felt like we were going to get over that hump either.”
Southeast got the better of Beloit in a sweep of the Trojan war last season, taking wins of 60-30 and 55-30 against the young upstart.
Like SES, Beloit returns almost everyone from a year ago, and should be poised to pose more of a threat with another season of experience under their belt.
“We know they’ll be well prepared,” Smith said. “They know what we do and they really didn’t lose anyone last year either so we know this will be a competitive game.”
For Southeast, this will be their first home game of the season, and following an undefeated year in league, the team is eager to pick up right where they left off.
“Honestly it seems like the last season never ended,” Smith said. “It’s great to get back home on a Friday night against a Beloit team that’s been a big rival for us and it’s always fun to play a team like that on your home court.”
SES will continue to look for big scoring performances from senior Karsyn Schlesener, who became the ninth player in Trojan history to score 1,000 points in her career.
Schlesener, already up to seventh on the list, is just under 500 points off the all-time mark set by Erica Montgomery in 2016.
The Trojans will need her, along with the rest of the offense to come up big as scoring remains one of the few question marks for the now veteran-clad team.
“We have to score, that's been our thing for two years now,” Smith said. “We can’t get into these five-minute slumps and we have to get some transition buckets.”
Tip-off of the first installment of the Trojan War is set for 6 pm at Southeast of Saline High School with the boys game to follow.
As always, the game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) courtesy of Eagle Radio.